When you sit down to study the menu, you’ll likely crane your neck to see what others are eating. Go with a big party and order the recommended two to three small plates per person. We actually ordered more than that—and some of us left the table still hungry. (Be forewarned, the tab can grow shockingly high for what amounts to a lot of very small starters.)
That said, the oversized menu is filled with culinary treasures, including eight dips and a dozen or so hot and cold mezzes, plus flatbreads, soups, and salads. Vegetarians will rejoice that more than half the menu is plant-based. There are four entrees featured, but on each of my visits, my companions and I were too enamored with the appetizers to move on to the bigger plates.
SYRIAN FARE IS COLORFUL AND AROMATIC, COMBINING SWEET AND SPICE, TEXTURE AND TANG.
The dishes rotate every few months, so no two visits will be the same. On the dip side, among our favorites was the shrimp hummus, a creamy spread that adds a generous pile of crustaceans, as well as cilantro, lemon juice, and garlic, to the traditional chickpea dish—it’s the very best version of hummus you’ll ever have. The keshké—a thick labneh yogurt bolstered by bulgur, scallions, and walnuts and flecked with dried rose petals, is tangy and rich and offers a cooling component to drizzle onto almost anything else you order.
Another spread, the muhammara—roasted red peppers, walnuts, pomegranate molasses, tahini, and olive oil—is equal parts smokey and sweet and gets its zing from a hit of red chile paste. With its deep red and orange hue, it reminded me of a beautiful sunset. The kebbeh orfaliyeh—think Syria’s answer to beef tartare—was subtly seasoned with minced onions, bell peppers, marjoram, and red chile paste. A few of us at the table thought that it was slightly under-seasoned, while another dining companion deemed it “perfect.”
On the hot mezze side, everyone agreed that the beyti sujuk rolls—char-gilled beef folded into doughy lavash bread resting in a pool of piquant tomato sauce and dressed with a dollop of labneh—was a menu highlight, as was the clever knafeh shrimp deep-fried to perfection in kataifi dough (a shredded and spun phyllo dough usually used for Middle Eastern pastries), which provided an extra-crispy crust.
The shrimp, served with a tahini tajen swirled with chile oil for dipping, resembled mini corndogs. The Aleppo-style kebbet karaz hot mezze—lamb meatballs with bulgur, cinnamon, and mini meatballs floating in a sweet-and-sour cherry sauce—was terrifically tart and led to much negotiation over who would scrape the last bits from the bowl.
